Uptown Trash

Leaning over, Alyson stuffed her sweaty black leotards into her gym bag. She winced as her stiff new jeans rubbed abrasively against her burning muscles. She couldn’t wait to get home, take a hot bath, and change into sweats. The provincial finals were coming up, and Alyson’s instructor was raising the bar every day in preparation for the competition. Cathy had kept the dancers an extra hour that evening, driving the girls into the ground with fitness training and form practice.

Of course, “girls” was no longer an accurate term for the students in Cathy’s Pointe 2 class, not since the arrival of worldly, almost god-like Adrian. However, Alyson recalled ruefully, it was true that the girls were the only ones driven into the ground by the evening’s drill. Adrian was the epitome of physical fitness. His Greek ancestors would have been proud of him, with his sleek, exquisitely defined structure and his rock-like muscles that rippled just under the copper skin. Adrian radiated power and grace, like a blond, two-legged panther. It wasn’t just his body, either. The indecipherable depth of his green eyes enraptured Alyson, and the odd mix of Old World Greek and cosmopolitan New York in his accent was indescribable. Adrian oozed sophistication. Alyson was dying to find out if he was as snobby as one might expect, or if he was down-to-earth as she dreamed. Unfortunately, learning the answer to that particular puzzle involved actually talking to Adrian.

Alyson sighed as she lurched out of the dressing room and headed for the parking lot. Idly, she wondered how she was getting home. She had never left the Hall that late before, and had no idea when the next bus would be along. As she stepped onto the pavement, an engine roared to life and headlights flared across her vision, momentarily blinding her. With one hand over her eyes and the other clutching her gym bag, Alyson squinted nervously into the light, prepared to bolt at any second.

“Aly! What the fuuuuck...” a high-pitched, stoned giggle accompanied the whine, and Alyson rolled her eyes in relief. She had forgotten her friends were going to pick her up after dance for a jam session. She walked over to the side of the bright orange, highly-decorated Volkswagen bus and swung the door open. Alyson nearly choked as the wave of fumes hit her lungs. She squinted through the haze and was able to identify Jay, Sammy, and Danica: drummer, guitarist, and bassist of Uptown Trash, the garage band Alyson sang for.

“Man, I thought we left late to get you, and we’ve still been waiting like a bajillion hours!” Jay slurred.

Alyson rolled her eyes. “Fucking Cathy kept us an hour late! I’m like three-quarters dead; pass me some of that ganja before my legs fall off.”

“Fuck man, just breathe,” Danica giggled.

“You’re not kidding. Have you guys been hotboxing the van this entire time?” Alyson demanded incredulously.

“Actually, we’ve been hotboxing it for a lot longer,” Sammy informed her, running a hand over his spiky blue hair. “We were booze cruising before we came to get you, and the air was too clear. Cops could have seen our bottles through the windows. We had to fog it up a little.”

Alyson tried to shake the thought of Sammy fogging up windows out of her head. How was it possible that she could be attracted to both Sammy and Adrian? Adrian was a Greek god from another world. Sammy was a gritty patch-punk street kid who listened to The Casualties, who had piercings most people had never even heard of, and whose most prized possessions were his torn green and black Misfits bunnyhug and his six-foot tall blown-glass water bong.

“You guys are seriously gonna die one day, or end up in jail, or both,” Alyson muttered. She wasn’t averse to smoking a little herb to relax now and then, and she had been as blasted as anyone at the infamous Patterson Crescent house party, but drinking and driving and being ripped 24/7 were a bit extreme for her tastes.

“So where are Becky and Leah?” Sammy asked, changing the subject as tactfully as one could expect of a drunk, antisocial pothead.

“Becky had to leave early to set up her display at the art exhibit, and Leah’s home sick,” Alyson replied. Leah paralleled Sammy as the other guitarist of Uptown Trash, and Becky, a gifted pianist with some experience in audio engineering, played the keyboards and managed all sorts of mixing, sampling, and special effects. Becky and Leah were also in Alyson’s Pointe 2 ballet class.

Uptown Trash was an odd mix of kids from an odd mix of backgrounds. Becky’s parents were in shared ministry at Faith Tabernacle, and Becky had been raised in a very supportive but restrictive Christian environment. Her specialties were music and art. However, she was currently struggling with her parents over just where she was taking her talents. Apparently, they had envisioned their daughter in slightly more “cultured” environments than custom tattoo parlours and grunge rock recording studios.

To be continued...